


Pain

by chronicAngel



Series: Leaves in the Summer [10]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Childbirth, F/M, Minor Character Death, POV Third Person, Sad, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-30
Updated: 2017-09-30
Packaged: 2019-01-07 08:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12229296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: She has never doubted that her husband loves her and Itachi before, but the way that he looks at her now is so unfeeling that she can't help but wonder for the first time in their years together if their marriage is a purely arranged ordeal.





	Pain

It is said that not experiencing pain during childbirth hinders the bond between the mother and the baby; that a painful labor displays the woman's strength and responsibility as a mother. Mikoto thinks that if this is true, she will be even closer to her second son that she is with Itachi. Her skin is coated with sweat as she tries her best to focus on her breathing, and her fingers dig into the wooden tatami in the attempt to find some way to relieve the pain since her husband is not allowed to be in the room for this delivery. Fugaku lingers outside with their two-year-old son, anticipating the delivery of their next healthy son, yet another child who will carry on the Uchiha name. Her nails scrape against the wood as her stomach heaves with a particularly painful push.

She is trying to control the sounds that are desperately trying to claw their ways out of her throat, and it is making her breathing sound more like gasps and pants than the controlled breaths she displayed with Itachi. For all her efforts, she can't seem to hide her pain, because Biwako helps her shift before gently rubbing at her back, as though she hopes to ease some of the pain. She feels the familiar sensation of cool, steady chakra being pressed into her back, and though she is grateful for the extra strength, it does nothing to help the agony nor the delivery. Her hands dig into white sheets beneath her that she can see are being stained with blood spreading across the white fabric. She has been struggling with their younger son for nearly five hours now, and if this were two years ago, she would have been holding Itachi for two hours already.

Tears and sweat both slide down her face and she wants to wipe at them but knows that it will only make her look weak. Instead, she allows her thoughts to drift to her husband and son in the hallway; Fugaku is less outwardly affectionate than he was when Itachi was only a baby, but he is still a good father, and she can't help but feel that Itachi was born to be an older brother due to his loving displays during her pregnancy. She pictures his tiny face and closes her eyes, pushing again.

Her fingernails dig into her palms and her toes curl as she lets out her first yell, which earns a stern look from Biwako that she can feel down to her bones and it makes her shiver, before she feels the familiar relief of her child arriving.

The first thing she notices is that he is not crying. Itachi was an almost unnaturally quiet baby, but he still cried immediately after his birth, and this is enough to make her eyes snap open and scan over Biwako and her newborn in search of something wrong. What she sees is the recognizable green glow of healing chakra being fed into her infant, and it makes her heart stutter. Everything is too quiet; she does not hear her son crying, Biwako is not announcing the sex of their child as though they were expecting anything other than a son, her child is not crying, her husband is not moving into the room to meet their child meaning that she has not been given clearance yet.

She feels a sense of panic flood over her when Biwako gives her sad eyes.

"It's a boy," she whispers as she offers Mikoto the still form of her infant, and her chest tightens.

When she takes him, she checks over his general health, though she all but knows what his stillness and lack of sound mean. His eyes are closed, and she runs her fingers over them to see, because she has to know... her heart stops, and her breath hitches, her hand lingering on his forehead. He's not cold to the touch like she always imagined a corpse should be, but she imagines it is only a matter of time until the lingering warmth of birth leaves him and he is as cold as she always thought. She lets out a wet sob, and pulls him close.

She is left alone in the room for a full two minutes, her tears spilling onto his forehead and cheeks, sweat drying on her skin and forcing strands of her hair to stick to her face as she clutches to his tiny body. He's so small, even smaller than Itachi was when he was born, and she supposes that tracks because this was already three weeks earlier than it should have been and everything was a sign that this would go wrong. Fugaku doesn't come in until her sobs spill into the air, and she is grateful that he doesn't bring Itachi with him; this is a moment she does not want her son to have to bear witness to.

She looks at him with wide, teary eyes, and when she adjusts their son to offer him to her husband, his head lolls to one side against her arm. She supposes he didn't have the muscles to keep it straight yet. Fugaku does not take him, or even move closer to them, and she watches him with sad eyes as he stands there, looking so calculating and... _cold._ She has never doubted that her husband loves her and Itachi before, but the way that he looks at her now is so unfeeling that she can't help but wonder for the first time in their years together if their marriage is a purely arranged ordeal. She thinks she hears Itachi struggle to poke his head in, but Biwako keeps him from doing so and Mikoto is unspeakably grateful. Eventually, her husband does come closer, standing next to her with a frown that feels too real to ignore or dismiss as a calculated mask to hide his true emotions. It's not a frown of sorrow, but of what seems like disappointment.

"I'm sorry." Her voice feels broken as she looks at him with wide eyes, still clinging to the now cold body of their son as she presses his face into her chest. Itachi's face peeks around the doorway but he doesn't step inside, and she supposes this means Biwako has left.

Fugaku's next words feel as though they shoot an arrow through her heart. "There will be others." She can't look at his face, staring at her son as tears spill over yet again and she can't help but feel like she is not strong, she is not responsible as a mother, and that the pain of childbirth is just that: pain. It is not a bonding experience. It is not a strength or a weakness. After all of this, it is nothing but a bitter reminder of what she lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I never really understood why Itachi and Sasuke didn't have more siblings, and why their age gap was so big (five years isn't abnormal, but for a clan so focused on preserving family it just didn't make sense to me). So, this was born of me trying to explain that, while also trying to hop back into my regular sad, angsty tone of writing.


End file.
